Whether it be hot or iced, who doesn’t love to start their morning with a fresh homemade latte? Ditch the Starbucks and Dunkin’ lattes that drain all your money away, and make your own equally delicious latte at home.
Lattes are my favorite coffee-like drink to make, beat only by my Banana Iced Coffee.
What is the basis of building a latte?
There are two main ingredients in every latte: milk and espresso.
Latte’s specifically need espresso rather than regular coffee. You may want to checkout my post to learn more about what is espresso and how it’s different from regular coffee.
As for milk, you can use any type of milk you want from dairy to non-dairy. The typical build for a latte, and my personal favorite, is whole milk.
What else can you add to a latte?
Besides the espresso and the milk, the rest is left up to you. You can add any type of flavor shots, flavored syrups, sugar, honey, etc. anything you want. Get creative with it, mix flavors, try new things, this is the fun part and where you get to really customize your latte.
Hot vs. Iced Lattes
Personally, my go-to is an iced latte. Whether it be summer or winter I’ll always be grabbing an iced latte to go with me.
So, what’s the different when you’re making a hot latte or an iced latte?
The difference is pretty simple, to make a hot latte, all you need to do is steam the milk. This will make your milk perfectly hot and frothy.
WHen you’re making an iced latte, all you need to do is add ice to your cold milk. Then, you can pour the espresso into the iced milk.
You never want to pour your hot espresso directly over the ice. Because the ice is so cold, this would cause the espresso to seize and create an additionally bitter flavor.
So, instead, temper the milk by adding ice to it. That way you can poor the espresso into the cold milk instead of directly onto ice.
Applying all these steps will allow you to make the most perfectly delicious latte at home!